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Arishima Takeo/Trivia
* He was born in a minor samurai family as the oldest of seven children. As a result, his background was a little different from the aristocrats of the White Birch school. ** In "My Father and Mother" (Watakushi no Chichi to Haha) he wrote: "Father gave me, as the eldest son, a particularly harsh education. From infancy, I was not permitted to sit relaxed in front of my father. In the mornings I was woken up at the break of dawn, even in winter, and was forced to go out into the garden and practise swordsmanship, go horse riding and so on. When I returned home from school, mother would have me read from the Confucian "Analects" and "Classic of Filial Piety". I read mechanically without understanding a single word, and I recall how often I wept after being severely scolded by her". Later in the said work it is revealed that his siblings weren't raised in such a harsh manner. * Two of his younger brothers, Arishima Ikuma (originally Arishima Mibuma) and Satomi Ton (real name Yamanouchi Hideo) were also members of Shirakabaha. * He was never particularly close with Ton, his second youngest brother, due to their age difference but also the fact how differently they were brought up. He was the caring, but distant older brother to him who did his best to support the younger man. * In 1884 when Takeo was 4, the Arishima family moved to Yokohama. They remained there until he was 14. The life in Yokohama filled with foreign, exotic sights, sounds and smells left a deep impression on him, influencing many of his literary works later. Notable one is his children's literature work "A Bunch of Grapes" (Hitofusa no Budou), which is based on his childhood in Yokohama. * When he was ten, he began to attend the Peers' School, and he was such a model student that he was chosen as the tutor of the crown prince, the future Emperor Taishou. * Takeo's first attempt at literature was a historical sketch completed in 1894. ** The same year his grades started to get worse as he started to read more, but also minor illnesses affected his school attendance. * In 1896, at the age of 18, he graduated from Peers' School, moved to Hokkaido and entered Sapporo Agricultural College. The same year he started to keep diary regularly. * In 1897, his father bought agricultural estates at Makkaribetsu (known as Niseko these days). The land acted as motivation for Takeo's studies, but also gained profit for his father. * Morimoto Koukichi, a classmate of his during Sapporo Agricultural College days, turned him into Christianity. The two were very close to the point it has been debated whether the two practiced homosexual activity or not. Takeo's diary entries hint that there was something going on between them, few times writing about him committing a "sin", but mostly the entries about him and Morimoto focused on their intense research about the religion they got taught by Uchimura Kanzou. ** Eventually their hardships and fight with religion ended up in an idea of suicide they planned to take place in a hotsprings resort nearby. Despite the plan and preparations, fear and doubt caught them, and the idea was cancelled. * In 1901 he graduated from Sapporo Agricultural College, and started to teach in Sapporo Independent Church Sunday School but also started to lecture in Enyuu Night School. The same year many of his friends and classmates started to leave Japan, one by one, going to study abroad. He slowly started to warm up for the idea too when Morimoto announced his plans to go to America eventually. ** Unfortunately same year in December 1st, he started army service. Shortly after starting, he was sent to hospital. He continued army in January next year and completed the service in November 3rd. He wrote a brief summary of his life in army to his diary through the year, in rather negative way. ** After army, he was occupied with teaching and finally in 1903 January, together with Morimoto, they talked to Uchimura Kanzou about their plan to study abroad. Uchimura rejected the idea and Takeo started to look for other things meantime. He kept getting different job offers, but he declined them. From February onwards he started to study English once again, after learning it for some years when he had been a child. * In late July 1903 he requested to be correspondent for Mainichi newspaper, gaining permission. In August, he finally set off to Seattle. He spent roughly three years in America, first studying and receiving degree of Master of Arts from Haverford College in 1904 summer. In autumn the same year, he took a few post-graduate courses at Harvard University. * He planned to study in Europe and set off from New York in 1906 September. Some weeks later he arrived to Italy, where he met his brother Ikuma who had been studying in the said country for a year. Together they travelled to Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Belgium, reaching Paris in January 1907. Ikuma decided to stay in France to continue his art studies, so Takeo continued his travel to London alone. Finally later the same year, he left back to Japan. Back in Hokkaido, he started to teach English in his alma mater, which by then had become Sapporo Agricultural University. * He was a fan of Walt Whitman, first reading his works during his years in America and later he translated some of his works into Japanese. His love for the man's literature can be seen through his own works, notable case being his famous work "A Certain Woman" (Aru Onna), where in the opening page he quotes Whitman's poem. ** He mostly read Western literature, but out of Japanese authors, Kunikida Doppo stood out the most for him. He found Doppo's works a bit before the older man's death and was shocked to learn how author, who's writings had appealed to him for a while, had died so suddenly. Takeo's "A Certain Woman" also happens to be a semi-autobiographical story about his ex-wife Sasaki Nobuko (Satsuki Youko in the work), first half of the story being more or less based on real events. * He met Mushanokouji Saneatsu and Shiga Naoya soon after he had came back to Japan in 1907 spring, because Shiga had requested him to see Ikuma's paintings (the two had been classmates and good friends). He and Mushanokouji also helped Shiga with his love affair over the family's maid. * In 1908, his father brought up the matter of marriage. He had wanted to get married with one woman earlier, but the old man was against the idea of letting him to choose his future wife. Takeo yielded and thus he was introduced to two bride candidates he met out of pity and sympathy for his father. In the end neither of the women were suitable and the whole case was to be postponed, but then his father's old friend introduced his friend's daughter Kamio Yasuko. Takeo met her just like the past two candidates. During two weeks the two got to know each others and Takeo's opinion about her changed slowly, him eventually admitting she was the one. The two got engaged, Takeo leaving back to Sapporo and the two were apart until March 1909, when he came back to Tokyo to marry Yasuko officially. ** Unfortunately, during the time the two were apart, Takeo started struggling with his feelings, which continued through the years the two lived together. Many researchers believe their age difference played big role through their marriage. Yasuko was only 20, Takeo being 31 at the time when the two married. He would often write in his diaries how immature Yasuko is, having no free will or her own opinions. He often felt sorry for her, fearing that he might have damaged her delicateness. ** They had three sons: Yukimitsu (1911 January 13th), Toshiyuki (1912 July 17th) and Kouzou (1913 November 30th). Later the oldest one, Yukimitsu, became a famous actor known as Mori Masayuki. Kouzou was adopted to Kamio family in 1931 and he inherited Baron's title in kazoku system. * He joined Shirakabaha in 1910 with his brother Ikuma (Ton had been a member for a while). He was oldest in the group and many respected him, seeing him as some sort of an older brother figure. Due to the fact how he was busy with teaching and taking care of his family in Hokkaido, he rarely attended meetings or met with the members of Shirakabaha in general. He mostly communicated with the group via letters or his brothers Ikuma and Ton. ** Among Shirakabaha it was common that the members called each others casually by their surname, but in his case he was called "Takeo-san". If someone talked about "Arishima", many thought about Ikuma. * In September 1914 his wife, Yasuko, contracted tuberculosis. Her illness brought the two together when Takeo tried to take care of his sick wife, but also the exact opposite as he was tired of the struggles their marriage had brought upon. He also tried to not let their children spend too much time around their sick mother. After few months of being hospitalised in Sapporo, she got moved to Tokyo and soon after that the whole family moved near her. Through the years her condition got worse little by little, and in August 2nd, 1916 she died, leaving Takeo alone with their three sons. In "To My Little Ones" (Chiisaki Mono e) he wrote to his children about Yasuko's death: "As a consequence of your mother's death, I left to wander the path whereupon my life lay. I came to understand the necessity of cherishing myself, of travelling that path undeviatingly". ** In December the same year, his father died too. Wife and father, who had been holding him back, were now gone and he was free to live the way he wanted, only being slowed down by his children. His dream of becoming a full-time writer came true when he established his status as a writer in 1917 by releasing one of his notable works "The Descendants of Cain" (Cain no Matsuei). * He was known for his rather passionate letters (despite being actually a rather reserved person), especially in some cases when he had crushes on some women. Notable case was Mathilde Heck, a Swiss young woman he met during his stay in Switzerland with Ikuma. Mathilde, later referred as Tildi, was daughter of the hotel's owner where stay stayed at. Takeo met her only for a week and their friendship eventually turned into one-sided love. His letters to Tildi were a mix of intimacy and reserve, him many times writing on impulse and later regretting his words. The two kept in contact for years even after he had left and continued his trip through the Europe. ** Even after his death, Tildi remained devoted friend to him and made trip to Japan twice to collect his works and visit places related to him. * In 1918 he had a dispute with Mushanokouji Saneatsu over the younger man's Atarashiki Mura project, which he saw to be doomed like other similar projects, but found it noble nevertheless. Their heated discussion ended up in misunderstanding after long exchange of letters. Takeo later regretted his writings, feeling bad for losing his friendship with Musha, which finally came into end few years later. * In October 1922 he started Izumi, his own magazine. He disliked "schools", preferring to work alone, and wanted to get closer to his readers. His motive behind starting the magazine was annoyance at the pressure put on him by the magazines and newspapers that published his works. * After his wife's death, from 1917 onwards he had many love affairs, especially attracting many fellow feminists like Yosano Akiko and Kamichika Ichiko. The affairs were mostly one-sided, Takeo not being ready for relationship so soon after Yasuko's death. He also seemed to have some sort of commitment issues and didn't really want to offer women as sacrifices to his carnal demands. * Through his life he struggled with his wealth, social status, religion and sexual desires. ** He wrote to Shinchou magazine in 1916: "In my mind, the Bible and sexual desires were in bitter conflict. My artistic impulse supported my sexual desires, and my moral impulse, the Bible. I did not know how to harmonise my enthusiasm for the two, so I suffered." * During last three years of his life he wrote mostly essays and articles, that gained both positive and negative attention. Most were about the upcoming revolution between the bourgeois and the working class, him feeling sympathy towards the latter one. But as he himself was of the first mentioned, he felt like he couldn't really do anything and was writing for nothing. He also dedicated notable amount of attention on women and their situation in the society, hoping that they could live freely and not be forced to random men as wives and locked up at home. * In late 1922 he got rid of his wealth and gave away his farm to his tenant farmers for free and wanted them to keep it common for everyone. His socialist thoughts got through to them, but eventually the farm got into trouble. It was illegal to have non-private property and the person who was in "charge" of the farm to avoid the said problem, got arrested for misuse of government irrigation grant. * In late 1922, he met Hatano Akiko, a feminist and journalist of magazine Fujin Kouron. Despite being married, Akiko set eyes on Takeo and started to meet him. Takeo tried to avoid her and mentioned in his diary a few times how he had been approached by her persistently. In early 1923, he wrote: "In the end I decided that if she really loved me that much, I'd become an adulterer." Later he confessed he felt towards her an emotion he had experienced never before. The two kept meeting and later that year Akiko's husband, Hatano Harufusa, found out about her and Takeo's relationship. First he tried to blackmail Takeo. Then he offered Akiko for 10.000 yen, but Takeo refused. Few days later the two set off to Jougetsuan, Takeo's villa in Karuizawa. Next day in June 9th, early in the morning, the two hanged themselves, leaving behind notes for their families and friends. Takeo was 45 years old. Due to the rainy season and the villa's location, their bodies were found roughly a month later on July 7th in advanced state of decomposition. ** Many fellow authors commented about his death after media found about his suicide. Masamune Hakuchou and Asuke Souichi (Takeo’s good friend) blamed Akiko, while Mushanokouji believed he was tired of living. Takeo himself never mentioned his true motive, but the love affair with a married woman and constant self-disgust accompanied with struggles of writing fiction very likely played big role in his decision to finally let go and die "happy", like he had mentioned in many of his suicide notes. ** After his death, his brother Ikuma took care of his children